A Marriage, an Ex-Husband, and a House Full of Unfinished Business Fuel Better Late, the Rare Comedy That Makes You Feel the Weight Behind the Punchlines.

November 8th, 2025

Larry Gelbart’s Better Late, now playing at Empire Stage in Fort Lauderdale through November 30, is one of those comedies that makes you chuckle while still breaking your heart a little. When Nora (Patti Gardner) and her husband Lee (Geoff Freitag) open their home to Nora’s ailing ex-husband Julian (Peter W. Galman), what follows isn’t merely a battle of egos. The premise may sound like farce, but Gelbart—best known for MASH* and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum—transforms it into a rueful reflection on love and the maddening endurance of human attachment.

Patti Gardner, Peter W. Galman

Larry Gelbart

The writing is mature, the tone is witty, and the moments of tenderness feel earned. Gelbart’s dialogue, full of zingers and double entendres, is handled with precision, yet it’s the silence between the laughs that resonates most. Deborah Kondelik’s direction strikes an admirable balance between humor and emotional truth.

Patti Gardner delivers a masterful performance as Nora. She’s wary and layered, a woman juggling resentment and compassion with the grace that only comes from having lived through both. Gardner’s chemistry with her two co-stars is rich with emotional ambiguity. Her coldness toward her current husband—rooted in his supposed affair—feels hypocritical since she once had an affair with him while still married to Julian. We ride the roller coaster with her, never quite sure where it will end. Gardner commands the stage and holds the entire production together.

Peter W. Galman gives Julian a quirky, irresistible charm. His manipulative humor is both infuriating and endearing. Having recently suffered a stroke, it’s often unclear how much of his behavior is deliberate, but that uncertainty adds depth. His scenes with Gardner are filled with palpable tenderness, and his unusual pacing and cadence keep the audience engaged.

Geoff Freitag grounds the production with understated realism. He’s the most tossed about by Nora’s mercurial moods, and his slow burn of jealousy and frustration eventually gives way to a touching vulnerability, making him the unexpected emotional anchor.

Patti Gardner, Geoff Freitag

As Julian’s son Billy, Chad Raven brings a youthful counterpoint that prevents the story from feeling confined to one generation’s moral lens. His own marital issues mirror those of his parents and stepfather. Though Raven’s performance is consistently pleasant, he oddly spends his entire first scene in the second act with his arms crossed, a small distraction from an otherwise natural presence.

Patti Gardner, Chad Raven

Dean Landhuis’s scenic design is the production’s weakest link. With five scenes in each of the two acts, the constant set shifts add unnecessary length to an already two-and-a-half-hour show. The scene changes slow the pacing, particularly at the top of Act Two. When a play centers on the intimacy and history of long-term relationships, the set should reflect the lived-in stories behind them. This production’s nearly sterile environment fails to do so.

The transitions between scenes are accompanied by recordings of the musical elegy that Lee is composing—simple piano chords that evolve into a lovely melody near the end. The motif mirrors the characters’ emotional growth and the imperfect process of sorting through one’s life and loves.

Filled with sharp dialogue and insightful observations on the human spirit, Better Late reminds us that relationships, like theatre itself, are never finished works. They evolve, stumble, and surprise us until the final curtain.

Ellen Wacher’s Pigs Do Fly Productions continues to carve out an essential niche in South Florida’s theatre landscape, focusing on stories about characters (and actors) over “a certain age.” The company treats later life not as an afterthought but as a vital, messy, and meaningful continuation of the human experience. With Better Late, now in its ninth season, the company once again proves that wisdom and wit make an unbeatable combination.

Better Late
By Larry Gelbart
Directed by Deborah Kondelik
Through November 30, 2025
Empire Stage – 1140 N. Flagler Drive, Fort Lauderdale
Tickets: $45 | www.pigsdoflyproductions.com | 954-678-1496
Performances: Friday at 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m.